Facebook Busted in Clumsy Smear on Google — THE DAILY BEAST ON: — The social network secretly hired a PR firm to plant negative stories about the search giant, The Daily Beast's Dan Lyons reveals—a caper that is blowing up in their face, and escalating their war.

Facebook Loses Much Face In Secret Smear On Google — Facebook secretly hired a PR firm to plant negative stories about Google, says Dan Lyons in a jaw dropping story at the Daily Beast. — For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley.

Is Google's Chromebook The Death Knell For Antivirus? — Updated and corrected below. — The antivirus industry likely let out a collective groan when Google first made a familiar-sounding boast Wednesday: that the just-launched laptops it's calling Chromebooks have “security built …

Introducing Login Approvals — Facebook has always been committed to both protecting our users' account and information, as well as giving them more control over their Facebook experience. From our User Operations team, who work to re-secure compromised accounts, to the Engineering team …

Why Facebook Needs Sheryl Sandberg — Mark Zuckerberg's No. 2 provides “adult supervision” at the company, trying to keep growth at an optimum level — On a Tuesday afternoon in late April, 30 managers of Facebook's various business units come together to discuss a matter that preoccupies …

The White House Offers Up A National Data Breach Law — Earlier this week, I asked, “how do we deal with data breaches?” The White House has a response: legislation. It's taken note of the rash of data breaches of late (Perhaps President Obama owns a Sony Playstation?) …

Cue the Music: Driven by Digital, Music Sales up in 2011 — Music sales in the U.S. are up 1.6 percent in 2011, according to The Nielsen Company, as digital album and track sales saw dramatic growth through May 8. While physical albums saw a decline in year-over-year sales from the same period in 2010 …

RON CONWAY: The Scariest Man In Silicon Valley — Legendary Silicon Valley angel investor Ron Conway is raising a new fund for his investment firm SV Angel, according to an SEC filing. — So far, he's raised $12 million out of $40 million planned. He should have no problem raising the remaining $28 million.

Intel working on new Atom chip architecture — Intel is working on a new Atom chip architecture that goes beyond the 3D transistors announced last week as the chip giant accelerates development of its most power-efficient chip design. — The new Atom-based “micro-architecture,” codenamed …

How bin Laden emailed without being detected by US — WASHINGTON - Despite having no Internet access in his hideout, Osama bin Laden was a prolific email writer who built a painstaking system that kept him one step ahead of the U.S. government's best eavesdroppers.

Supply chain may not be able to satisfy demand from Apple — Taiwan-based electronics manufacturing service (EMS) provider Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) is reportedly facing a shortage of both labor and materials at its plants in Chengdu, China, which is likely to affect shipments …

Social media ad network Technorati names a new CEO — Social media ad network Technorati Media said today it has appointed a new chief executive officer and a new chief technology officer as well. — The change is a big one for Technorati, which comScore ranked as the 14th largest media company …